Gute Arbeit hier! Gute Inhalte.

I'm having problems connecting to the client as well. All last week is was in and out, and over the weekend it's been down. It gets stuck connecting, and there it sits... for eternity.

I still cant keep my MSN hotmail account connected for mail. The IM is fine for MSN but not the mail. Fails to connect all the time. Please fix or help

I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but I can't seem to connect to my MSN e-mail through Digsby. I've double checked the password and it still tells me there's an error.

Having problems connecting to my MSN mail account (Hotmail)

i'm not sure if this problem is persisting only for me or everyone, but i'm still unable to be connected to any servers (MSN, Google chat, Yahoo) except AIM. please help me out on this issue. i'm really having hard time without Digsby.

any help appreciated.

wow, popular app! :) Good to read you're back online.

@Isarian: We are working on it now and it will be in the next release.

I realize this happens from time to time but most dedicated hosting centers have redundancy.

I am with TRussell - while I think that planning features during an outage is probably not a great use of time, the service has now been up since Feb 9th and no word from the developers on whether the server-less connection mode is in the works, plans, etc. Some word or commitment to this feature (which was mentioned vaguely during the last outage too) would be reassuring.

Since I've been using Digsby I have appreciated the very transparent way that dotSyntax handles feature requesting, beta testing, and ongoing development. Some of that now, when urgent need for a feature has been established, would probably soothe a large portion of the user base.

Still a huge fan of the product and will continue to be using. As this is the second time I've been using Digsby in the midst of an outage, it'd be really nice to get more verbose information of the downtime. When I'm chatting over AIM's protocol within Digsby there are times when I will not be actually sending outgoing messages but I will receive incoming messages. However, there is no indicator that my outgoing messages are not being received and this leads to awkward social situations that would be a lot better handled with "Your message has not been received" or "You aren't connected to this network correctly." or really any kind of indicator short of coming to the digsby blog (which is a bit unrealistic to do anytime someone doesn't respond quickly to a message) that all is not working as expected.

@Trussell: I bet your software is flawless.. right ??

If you car needed an oil change.. you would just ditch it and get a new one ?? Seriously ... I am also a developer, and I also rely very heavily on IM to communicate.
My biggest problem is my actual internet connection (which is why I have two alternate ISPs .. just in case. I also use a wide variety of methods (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, SkyPe and GTalk) All of my clients have all my contact information.. and.. worst case scenarios.. they can just email me, SMS me, phone me :-)

I think "LOCAL MODE" would be a great option to have!! I have been testing Digsby for my IM client. I think it is simple to use and pretty bug free. I have always been weary of clients that require a connection to a server and not allowing the individual protocols (AIM, MSN, etc ...) to connect on their own. A local mode sounds like that could prevent that.

I just felt cut out from the world yesterday. I reinstalled the program, tried yo reconnect a 100 times...

I checked your blog a lot... at first it didnt say you where having trouble so I feared i had done something to my pc that damaged digsby or whatever...

but thx for the good work.... and try not to do it again, i dont think my psyche would resist...

Greetins from Chile!

What's wrong with you people? Just go to meebo.com, log in your IM credentials, and you're back up and accessible for IM communications with nothing but a browser.

Seriously, if Digsby being down affected you for more then 30 whole seconds, you don't know how to use a computer.

I had to resort to Pidgin yesterday! haha. Thanks for informing us so quickly and keeping us in the loop. Thank god for Twitter! :)

Thank you so very much for your excellent customer service. This issue along with the other major outage you experienced a week ago was made much more understandable and tollerable to know that you were on top of the problem and letting your customers know what was going on.

Keep up the great work with your product and support.

@Frank Watson

I use Digsby because I DON'T WANT to use other IMs or to install them.

we all use digsby here at work, thanks for working so hard to bring it back. yesterday we all had to shoot arrows wrapped with scrolls between cubicles and it was expensive.

I read a few comments and didn't see this in them.

The solution to Digsby being down, is simply to install ICQ, Yahoo Messenger or whatever IM you are using in Digsby.

Now, if Digsby won't connect, just start the other IM and go for it until they get their problem resolved.

Dear Digsby,

M soo sorry for u guys, :(
Today, made me realize how much m actually dependent on it...

I chkd the blog like every 10 mins for updates.... :)
Infact, every1 here in IIT uses this lovely app....

But pls do add orkut to ur social websites..... that would reallly make it perfect..... coz a really large no. of ppl use it in india and brazil.

Thanks a lot for back

I'd like to say thanks for the downtime so that I could read all of the inane posts, cyberbullying, blind defensive fanboyism, and sky-is-falling poo-pooing in this thread. It's been a non-stop comedy train to Yucksville all day long. Kudos!

Glad to have the client back up and running - I do love Digsby. Hopefully lessons learned today will make for some improvements in new revs soon, as some of the calmer folks here have called out.

I know how it feels to have people with such high expectations when they have invested so little. I appreciate all you are trying to do.

but yeah, a local mode would be wonderful!

kthxbai :)

It's Back, but for how long. I use Digsby for work, and resorted to aim express to tide me over. THANK GODSBY its back up!

To the complainers out there, I probably would have complained too, if digsby had been down for 6 months to a year, but look, it was down for what, 1 day at most? who cares! :-) I mean really :)

digsby is awesome, and its got my vote as the #1 instant messaging client ever created :) despite all this :)

I personally would rather see the digsby team concentrating more on a Mac version, then worrying about server issues, because really a day of downtime was no big deal at all :)

I don't use a Mac, but I know several who do, and I could bring alot more users to digsby if there was a Mac version :-) Alot of people are switching to Mac after the Windows Vista fiasco. I have to run Vista, but if price were no object, I'd rather be running a Mac myself, but who has a spare $2 grand lying around. If I did, I wouldn't be spending it on a computer. hehe

As for a paid version of digsby, the only thing that would concern me about that, would be digsby making Trillian's mistakes, but as long as they stay away from that kind of business model, which I'm sure they would, then I see no problem with a paid version I really don't, so long as a free version is always available.

Tom

Errrr... still not working for me :/ I feel like it's my fault though.

Thank heavens, I was almost poked to death on FB when I got back ;-)

Thanks for getting things back online and thanks for the software.

LOL. Love P-Fizzle... "Digsby owes me money"

Sure... 8 hours of downtime x $0.00 you paid in... = $0.00. Checks in the mail.

I'm suprised there isn't further redundancy in the platform, but for a startup with revenue it makes sense. Easier solution will be to just put in a local mode version, which it looks like their doing.

Sorry, I was complaining. Thanks for being back up, is anyone else having problems with AIM? Authentication error?

No word from them in almost three hours. Scary. Mine is working though! Woohoo!

Back up and running! Way to go guys!

back up for me :)

Just tried and it's working for me now. Thanks!

Your server is back up! I just got Digsby this past weekend, but its possibly one of the best programs that I've ever used. Keep up the good work! Hopefully this problem doesn't happen again. Digsby has already become a vital part of my life.

welcome back, digsby!

hey at least they are creating a "local side"

Two things:
1) Spelling "occurrence" wrong is unacceptable from ANY company.
2) We wouldn't have these issues if Digsby wouldn't require a Digsby account, that is, all the account information (AIM, ICQ, Facebook, etc. etc.) was stored locally on our own computers.

Its back up for me.

I don't know how I'm supposed to chat online with babes all day when my Digsby client isn't working.

I'm lost.

Back UP!

This is a perfect example of why everyone should have multi-site disaster recovery. In the event of a site failure such as today you would be able to fail over to the other site and be up and running in a matter of minutes. This all day outage was ridiculous. Whoever your head of IT is should be fired over this all day outage.

Its backkkkkk

HOORAY!

I have just logged onto my digsby msn account.

Digsby is finally back up for me...dunno about everyone else though.

Thanks, works now!!!

Dude, I use disgby everyday and it sucks trying to use ichat and yahoo messenger and I don't even have access to my social netowrks. So this down times sucks, you never really realize the importance of something until it's gone. But this is really bad Digsby, you've been down now for almost an entire workday - get your ish together, there is VoxOx, gtalk is getting better, trillian, etc. who want my business so come on!

Those who depend on IM clients for work, especially third party freebie clients should not be complaining in my opinion. You have other more reliable options such as the original IM client its self. You can NOT hold these guys responsible for you missing out on business IM's when you have perfectly good clients working and all over the place on the net.

Sure its inconvenient to install another client. I can guarantee this is not the last time this will happen to digsby, and i can guarantee other IM clients will go down at some point one way or the other.

I use digsby at work and ive gone all day just fine with out it. Why? Because even though I still didnt install another client... I walked over to people to talk to them. Or I simply emailed them. Its Real Life IM'ing.

at least we still have porn in meantime!!

Back when I had stewardship over a small server farm, I occasionally had to stand around and wait for a recovery process to run. We used to chant, "Work mother f*#$er, Work mother f*#$er, Work mother f*#$er" while we waited.

I think we would all feel better if everybody who was watching this downtime could chant this, all over the country/world right now. I'm doing my part. Who else is in?

/w

I <3 Digsby too much to get annoyed by this server issue! But thanks so much for informing the community this fast! It's awesome! Anyways, in a way it turned out to be a positive thing for me since I can actually get on with my work and not get distracted lol!

Best of luck!

Outages suck, I've been there recently too during a server move that took about twice as long as it was supposed to. As annoying as it is to have to move back to Trillian, there is NO product that can fill the niche in my communication needs as well as Digsby has. Can't wait for it to return!

Over the past month, I've DL Pidgin, Miranda, Gajim & now Digsby. Digsby is the one I like best... I just hope it comes back up soon for me!

Thank you for everyone working on this problem.

@Karl, I do, haha...I do love Digsby and have converted many people to using it.

local mode FTW! Go Digsby Go! Best IM client out there!

I just wanted to put in a vote for a client side cache or bypass for days like this and also to thank the Digsby team on keep us informed.

"A couple hours without flirting and sending stupid messages back and forth" may not be a big deal but a couple hours of missed business messages is a VERY big deal. To all of you playing down this downtime, please remember not everyone uses Digsby for such inane pursuits.

"DW Said,
February 9, 2009 @ 3:35 pm

In my opinion, local mode should have been present since the conception of digsby. To rely on a third-party server to guarantee overall connectivity is just an extra loop to jump through."


Exactly my point (see my earlier post) - and it's irrelevant from who's relying solely on Disgby (nobody, it's just very annoying to reinstall another client).

"Also, I want to add that I’m STILL in favor of paying for Digsby rather than ads, installer options, toolbars, research/seti integration, etc…especially once a release candidate is deployed.

My $0.02"

Perhaps, it depends greatly on the price and features - for example if UNC path links will be working - under ALL OS versions - then I would immediately consider paying for it (provided there will be a meaningful 25-50 user price tier as well).
For a standalone user...? Dunno, I never bought into Trillian and unless it offers something reall crucial I don't see the point in charging for it while trying to compete with free clients...

Hey, chooch...

How'd you like to lose a few teeth? Smack tard!

And to the other P-Fizzle imitator, that's all you are, an imitator, an instigator, and a flatulator... not an innovator, just a perpetrator.

Now, as for Digsby, I love the service, but seriously, you guys have GOT to get this thing up and running. At this point, I'm feeling like Digsby owes ME money. Yes, that's right... I said it, I know you all are thinking it. Digsby has lured me into a super-awesome product with one major flaw. And then they've pulled the rug out from underneath us.

I wouldn't be surprised if this outage was "intentional"... just to see what happens.

Strnager things have happened, my friends.

Oh, and choochie-poo... Let me introduce you to the back of me hand... punx!

I don't feel whole right now...

You guys do an awesome job keeping this program alive. A little down time is totally okay now and again. It's by far the best IM/mail client anywhere. Updates on the blog are icing on the cake for 'instant gratification' generation. Funny enough my campus just blew a transformer a couple days ago knocking out 3200 users and all my servers. D'oh!

you guys are doing a great job with this app and keeping us updated on fixes. and they come quickly. i imagine that for every one person who comments there are probably 50 people who dont, so that should make you feel awesome that your FREE software is loved by so many. keep up the good work. and i will not betray you by using another, no digsby, no IM for the day. jajaja

@Karl - Ha ha ha - glad i'm not the only one ;-)
--steve

It really doesn't matter with this small problem if we compare with the great service you are giving for free. I will still use digsby and I hope you will try to find out a solve of this problem. You guys are great and I believe you will find a great solution.

Waiting (notso)patiently for Digsby's return. Had to reinstall Trillian to get through the downtime, but not jumping ship. Great product, insanely terrific support, I'm a Digsby fangirl, even when you're down!

Don't be so hard on yourselfs! I love Digsby and will stick will you guys until the service is unavailable permantly. And it's great that you have information up.

Maybe you guys could make the client get somekind of service status when it's not able to connect to the main service?

Don't be so hard on yourselfs! I love Digsby and will stick with you guys until the service is unavailable permantly. And it's great that you have information up.

Maybe you guys could make the client get somekind of service status when it's not able to connect to the main service?

I agree with a few posts. One this is a great piece of software. I convinced several friends to switch to it after i myself being a trillian user (and paying customer of ver 2) for a long time.

I also think having some kind of offline option to store settings and what have you would be nice. This way if they have issue we can just bypass there servers.

When all is said and done though Im still happy with Digsby, even if I am going through withdrawls today. I havnt even opened another IM client. I refuse to!!! I like digsby that much hehe.

My mom wants to tell everyone that she hopes the servers are feeling better, and hopes they are able to return to work soon.

the local mode thing sounds good as a backup plan.

while i am a bit sad that digsby doesn't work right now - much love to the whole digsby team and once again "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone".

I run a datacenter in Colorado and I can tell you first hand that no matter how much you prepare, outages can happen. Of course the more you prepare the less likely they will be.

I feel your pain today guys, hang in there.

@Trussell: You want them to be having engineering meetings about the new feature during an emergent service interruption? You're right about the feature. It's a deal-breaker, but for pity's sake, man, "I have to have assurances NOW, or I'm leaving forever!"? In my experience, crisis is the WORST possible time for good development to happen. Have a coke and a smile, re-install Trillian Pro, WHICH YOU'VE PAID FOR, and re-evaluate Digsby if and when they've implemented the feature.

/w

thumbs up, kids. i'm actually being productive at work today too, IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!

The way I see it: if you are pissed, move on to something else. Stop your damn whining. Digsby will figure a way to fix this and they are already looking to avoid this in the future. Good response I say. If you whiners were so bright, why didn't you come up with this app? Bottom feeders are always incredibly brilliant with others' ideas. Geez!

It's funny to read the comments people post, lol.

First of all, I use IM in a work environment like many people, and it's an invaluable tool. In fact, it's a hospital, so literally lives are at stake if communication doesn't happen quick.

That said, anyone who pins their whole communication system on one service (IM or otherwise) is a fracking moron. Not being able to sign in to Digsby isn't going to cause a total meltdown anywhere.

Of course it's absurd that Digsby doesn't have an offline cache of our configuration settings, and of course it's absurd that the client routes through the server instead of the directly to the services, but this will teach them and they'll fix it.

Quit hassling everyone and let them get on it! :)

Get over it people. Server outages happen often and it is not the end of the world. Nothing in life is guaranteed to work all the time. Shit happens and it needs to be fixed... no biggie. Personally, I think that using Digsby for work is a bit ridiculous and not professional. It is made for social networking, not business networking. If you can't work without it then YOU need to have a backup set in place and not pin the blame on Digsby when they had no control over this outage. They are doing everything that they can to fix it quickly. Calm down people. You take life too seriously. Take a deep breath, have a drink of water, and relax.

Come buy some servers from us, I LOVE Digsby.

www.servepath.com

In my opinion, local mode should have been present since the conception of digsby. To rely on a third-party server to guarantee overall connectivity is just an extra loop to jump through.

Also, I want to add that I'm STILL in favor of paying for Digsby rather than ads, installer options, toolbars, research/seti integration, etc...especially once a release candidate is deployed.

My $0.02

For everyone saying that this problem was foreseen, or that downtime is unacceptable... the last I checked Digsby was still a BETA release. Anyone in the IT world will can you that beta means it is for testing purposes, not for deployment into a production environment. As such, we are going to run into bugs, hiccups, and issues. If you are not able to accept that fact, then you should not be using this product until it is a final release.

At this point we are all beta testers, making the final product a better one for everyone.

Digsby is the best IM client available. So much so, I would stick with them if they were down for a month and came back up. The professional attitude of the company and the rapid response and notifications regarding issues is more than most companies provide, and the core product is as solid as they come. Suck it up - I think we can all make it a few hours here and there without mesaging. There are plenty of web based solutions to temporarily fill the void, should it be necessary.

Does anyone else keep hitting the connect button hoping that this time it will go through?

As a system admin I can understand your troubles. Great product and the direction you are taking as noted by you is the way. And to those posters who have no appreciation for Digsby... Stop complaining, it's FREE. If you have such a great need for 100% IM up-time go pay for something and oh the support will be worse and you probably won't even be able to understand them. Oh, and to Tommy, your IM is the least of your worries. Your english sucks.

I am going through Digsby withdrawal... Need my pop-ups...

Good job guys! Keep it up!

Oh, and for those of you out there who are complaining about this free service that you're getting... grow up. If it's so important for work or for whatever other reason, there are other ways to log in. www.meebo.com can log you in to all the clients. AIM and Yahoo! have online versions of their IM. not sure about MSN, but it comes with windows! And yes, not everyone uses Windows, I know...

Think of it this way, if a friend of yours gave you a ride somewhere for free, but you were upset because he was driving slowly, know what he'd say? Get out and walk.

It's free, stop complaining.

Dear P-Fizzle,

Shut the hell up.

Sincerely,
chooch

I find it amazing how many people are complaining about a FREE service. And even more that are relying on a FREE service for their jobs. Crazy!

I miss you Digsby, but I'll see you when you get fixed.

A "local mode" option would be great.

It would also be logical and convenient if we could export all our settings (including preferences and the buddy list); this way we could keep a personal local backup.

Thanks for your hard work.

I have never used an IM client as wonderful as Digsby, So you have an outage here and there... Whenever that happens, www.meebo.com to the rescue, until your servers come back up =D

An offline mode would be absolutely wonderful though!

You guys have done an AMAZING job on this software and I can see it only getting better! Where others are more interested in throwing more "crap" into their clients, you guys spend time trimming down, speeding up, and optimizing the program's code to run better. Keep it up guys!

This should be the best indication of how good this service really is, when after a couple of hours of downtime, people truly start freaking out. I too use it a lot for work and and am hurting right now because it's just not convenient anymore to log myself in to each service separately. But i can survive so i'd think the rest of you should be fine too. After having put up with trillian's unstable-ness for years on end to get half the service these guys here provide, I think we can all take a chill pill and let them get it fixed. It's still much more stable than anything else out there and a godsend for those of us with a big online presence. Keep it up guys - a little down time won't turn me off (pun intended)

Thanks for the updates. I appreciate your service. Thank you.

P-Fizzle, I am P-Fizzle. I am a whiner. I need to be "knuckled up". I can be reached at YourFace, YourHead. Please see an example of my whining's:

"to Digsby, you must get your servers back up and running very quickly or there are going to be some real fireworks around here. (i.e. back to knuckle up)"

See? I say I want me fwee software up and wunning NOW or thew'll be twuble. Big twuble!

Please hit me.

Part of the team should have been meeting to discuss my suggestions and the suggestions of others to implement a local mode, fall-back plan, etc. when the servers have a problem after last week. You didn't need today's problems to see the need to be really serious about a local-mode, but today's problem hammers the need and, again, this should be high-priority for the next alpha release or a very-near-future alpha/beta release.

I appreciate the transparency, and a great product. Keep up the good work!

The good thing you can say is that you now see how many people use Digsby. I am sure that Digsby wanted everything to go through them but they are not learning the hard way that you should never create a single point of failure.

Good luck on bringing it back up but in the mean time if you need to use IM try http://www.meebo.com/

Just an idea, but for the users who are using this at home who also use steam, I think it would be a nifty little addition if it would be possible to incorporate the steam IM into the app. Just an idea.

Where are you guys based out of? The last update was at 2:00PM but which time zone?

For local implementation:

There should be a "private computer" mode and a "public computer" mode. The private computer mode would implement local caching while public will not. Should be an option at login.

I can understand people being inconvenienced and angry, but I can't believe the amount of people getting so aggressive about this.

What did you people do before Digsby? Hey, go back to that!

P-Fizzle, you're a whiner. PSTFU.

Good deal on! "Local Mode" would be great! I know an update is in the works. You have really listened to the users when making such a great client. Hope to be online soon. :)

No worries not going anywhere, keep up the good work!

ps.
once this is all fixed can you push out a linux client soon :p

This certainly shows some poor architectural design on the software writers part. I could see some reduced services if Digsby is down, but they could (and SHOULD) allow IM connections to the IM servers (Yahoo!, MSN, Google, AIM, etc) if connection to their server times out.

This is almost certainly a show-stopper for a lot of people to be at the whim of a central server — no matter _how_ stable it might have been over the past year.

I think I might go back to my old IM client software until I see Digsby say they’ve made changes to the login handling mechanism. Our developers at work rely on IM to send info and ask questions with each other. I can’t wait all day for Digsby to try to fix their servers.

It takes 2 serious crashes for you to actually have a meeting about local mode? C'mon guys, you have a good product, but you need to be more forward thinking than this.

I keep reading that there were 2 outages in over a year. However, according to the Digsby Blog there are 3 posts titled "Server Issues" in 2009 alone (2/9/09, 2/2/09, 1/23/09).

even DIGSBY is affected by the economy crisis... ;-) (just joking)

Agreed, Digsby rox. But there's no reason to funnel logon connections through the Digsby server at all. Implement this "local mode" you're talking about. If you want to serve up ad's to us I'm not opposed to that, it's free software at the moment after all... but you could implement ad's without funneling us through the Digsby servers for a "logon" as well...

Digsby Rules!!, hope that the problem can be resolved soon

thanks for letting us know i was searching google and everything just to make sure i wasn't the only person have a problem.... really thanks a lot...

Can I get a Royale with cheese?

Thanks for the update and for listening to our "local mode" suggestion.

Thanks for the Update and +1 for "Local Mode." I'll get in on the beta for that.

"Seriously people, get a GRIP. A couple hours without flirting and sending stupid messages back and forth is not the apocalypse. I think under grueling tests, people have even survived a whole day or two without IM capabilities. I saw it on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not."

I'm a contract programmer. I work from home, and the client I'm currently working for insists on real-time accessibility at all times. They frown on frequent phone use, and insist on the use of their internal IM server for most communications (easier to multitask, less disruptive for people stuck in meetings). In addition to this, the firm I work for uses IM for its own communication -- on a different network. I *cannot perform my job* without IM connectivity.

"Worst case, launch those individual clients (AIM, YIM, etc) for a couple hours and you will probably also survive."

Sure, I could do that, or reinstall Trillian Pro (which I've paid for). But after I've spent the time to install and configure that software, what's compelling me to switch back?

"If not, and you can’t wait a few hours for Digsby to solve its problems, making 'threats' to switch to other programs doesn’t really accomplish much. Just shut up and do it and don’t bother the rest of us with your sniveling nonsense."

If the Digsby devs published any private contact info (an email address, or a forum account that accepted PMs), you wouldn't have heard any of mine.

I'm not angry, and I'm not "threatening" anything -- this is just one more business decision, where I have to decide which software best suits my needs. Digsby is an *excellent* piece of software, but it's got at least one major flaw, and if the devs can't be bothered to reassure their userbase (one sentence, "we're working on a cached config system now", would be enough)... then I need to start looking elsewhere. Nothing more, nothing less.

Oh, and should you ever get into the software business, I recommend not using the word "sniveling" to describe your users. They tend to react poorly to that sort of thing. :)

I'm impressed with the communication, and happy that a local mode will be in the works. We were just discussing that today here. One of our clients wanted free IM and Digsby had the functionality they wanted. We were in the process of looking for another client that could do what Digsby does, but with a local mode in case of just such an outage. I'll put my searching on hold if local will become a reality in the near future.

Stuff happens. I'll be happy when we're back online. Thanks for the great product, guys.

Thanks, Digsby. Yes, I'll echo the frustration of being one of the people who use it for work, but people can still email me, and I can live without Twitter for a day or so. :) Good job of keeping people informed. All of the bears here at Bears on Patrol send their hugs in appreciation and support. ;)

Well it's good to see that you guys are working on it. I wasn't aware that this happened before, so I just thought it was something on my end.

It's also nice to see that you guys actually listen to us. Keep up the good work =)

It really took you this long to figure out you needed to do that. Really?

I'm stunned that you still haven't fixed this. You're losing and are going to lose a TON of people over this.

OK, downtime sucks. But really, where else will you get another Digsby? Tough it out, they aren't going anywhere, and the sky is not falling.

Combined IM is cool and all, but I use Digsby because it integrates social networks facebook and linkedin. Without that feature, Digsby is just another Trillian / Pidgin / Meebo.

I've been using Digsby for quite some time as a regular user and alpha tester.

This is the 2nd time this has happened. Two times in over a year.

If you need the IM services for work you should have a back up.

There are several capable of offering minimal back up availablility.

Instantbird, Pidgin, Miranda.

The IT's are doing a great Job supplying Digsby for free.

You back up your work (if you are smart), why not have a back up IM client.

Thanks.

Mac

Looks like your SSL Cert expired on the 5th

DUH!!

So, those of us in the software engineering camp are all agreed, then? A local backup connection option is in order? Cool. So, we only need, what another 150 posts calling for it?

How about those of us in the common sense camp? I've got a crazy idea: I keep my OWN back up plans in place any time I have mission critical communications needs. Yes, Digsby should have this feature, but so should you, dummy. If you can't handle that, maybe you can find a chat client that will give you a GUARANTEE of service.

/w

Look people... if any of you whiners want to knuckle up, let's dance!

Digsby rox, and you all know it. I will NOT sit by an tolerate these injustices that are being perpetrated against an innocent fledgling company. Just e-mail me your city and state, and we'll meet somewhere to "discuss" your problems. (Some of you may have already had a taste of my negotiating style first hand.)

Now that being said... to Digsby, you must get your servers back up and running very quickly or there are going to be some real fireworks around here. (i.e. back to knuckle up)

Toodles.

{quote}
try{
connectAndSyncWithDigsby();
} finally {
connectUsingLocallyCachedSettings();
}
{/quote}

Don't you want to put that local cache connection call in the catch (RemoteConnectFailedException e) block? In the finally, it'll run every time whether the "try" succeeded or not. Not exactly the desired behavior.

/w

I'm really suffering from the Digsby Blues today. Going back to Trillian depresses me now. Hurry up guys! :-)

Damn! At least you guys have the blog up. I just checked 10 minutes ago, and even that wasn't updated. I am using portable Pidgin now. I hope to see you guys back up soon, because you are way better!

-EDP

No problem guys, good to have the updates given out so quickly.
Not going to do us any good to complain and demand things, even google has outages and their a multibillion dollar company.

Whew, I thought I had some local problems that was not allowing me to connect. Glad to see you are on top of it.

Hang in there. As a community manager for a subscription MMO company I know how painful downtime can be when you feel like your whole customer base is breathing down your neck (in fact we have downtime today too - out of our control, but our customers don't care who's ultimately responsible!).

Digsby is a fantastic tool. Keep up the good work.

wow.. so many comments....


still waiting for digsby to get back online :D

"In the past year FB chat has been down a dozen times, twitter is nearly always down, MSN has it’s own issues…"


...WHICH, UNFORTUNATELY, HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR PAIN here.

Those are *protocols*, fella and this is an *app* which suppoe to give us an all-reaching arm to connect to all those protocols.
Moreover some of us use it at *work* - ergo we lost our business IM as well.

Sure, we can revert to some other app - but then why would I ever come back? To risk another outage?

As much as I like Digsby I'll give it another hour or so then after lunch I will reinstall my old app - sorry but this ET-has-to-call-mothership problem was long foreseen, it's a more than obvious design flaw, period. I was mitigating dropping Digsby last time (power outage) but I decided to give it another chance if they can come out with a new version - including no-motherload status support - faster than another major outage but alas, it didn't happen...

We're going on almost 5 hrs of downtime now (I believe). Looks like the forum discussions about math need to be updated. Is this 9 hours of downtime in the last year? That's more like 99.90% uptime, right? :)

Seriously, though, is there an etf? If it's a database restore that they're doing, is it a matter of minutes or hours?

FWIW, I'm logged into meebo temporarily while this downtime is occurring. IM is working just fine (though more awkward of course, less digsby). But surely I'm being more productive (in general) without my myriad twitter updates distracting me (blessing in disguise). Although, I have to admit I'm spending a lot more of my time this morning checking these forums and blog posts for when the resolution happens, so maybe the benefit is offset. Oh well.

Keys to a successful IM client

#1 - STAY UP

It's amazing to see some of the negative comments about this app. In the past year FB chat has been down a dozen times, twitter is nearly always down, MSN has it's own issues... So far Digsby is in the lead for consistency and even transparency.

I've been using Digsby more lately because it has far better Jabber support than Trillian does, at the moment. We use Jabber at my workplace to communicate and seeing how it's a workday, my not being on IM is completely unacceptable. Just how it's unacceptable for the IM client to be completely unusable just because it can't phone home to Digsby's servers. There absolutely has to be a way to work with IM without the mothership. If Digsby just evaporates one day, the client itself becomes USELESS, under the current circumstances. That's just not cool.

Maybe the servers are having a case of the Mondays?

Perhaps digsby need more pieces of flair?

Hi Digsby...

I hope you can make it work...gdluck guys..i cannot live without digsby nowdays..it become one of important tool when i online...

for all other user who always blame digsby..keep ur mouth shut..coz they always improve their service...

Hi guys, don't worry - you guys still rock!

Perhaps in a future update of Digsby you could allow users to log into specific IM protocols without the need to contact the Digsby servers.

To be fair, this hardly ever happens. It's not a big deal.

Dear Digsby,

I could complain with others, but instead I will say thank you. So far your product has been fantastic. You won me over after years of using Trillian and that deserves kudos.....

However, on the technical front, lessons to be learned as well as some valuable suggestions in these comments. Having the client check with digsby.com for latest versions / connections / etc...is a very nice feature as it allows me to configure once and run from my work PC, home PC and laptop while only configuring all of that once. Awesome. However, having each of those clients store a "last known good" of all of the accounts and settings, encrypted obviously, would indeed be a nice failback if digsby.com can't be reached.

But down to the real issue. Whether it's power or Network failure.....there are solutions to your current issues. These pains have been learned by many in the industry. Yes, you are providing a free service and thank you. But there are many users, myself included who have dozens of years each configuring redundant, highly available systems so that these scenarios don't happen. Even a lower end DR solution would suffice in this instance. I say reach out to those who have made constructive comments and seek their aid. Myself included. Use the knowledge that people are posting here for something more than scorn and ask for help. See who steps up to the plate.

At the end of the day....thanks.....Digsby is slick and I'll keep using it. Even if my boss can't IM right now....it's ok, I really don't mind the morning reprieve....

-Brian

I think they've heard you about the local caching. Enough already, don't you think? Sheesh!

It's happened twice in one week. But these same two occasions make twice in a YEAR.

I think reiterating the same things over and over and over again here and in the forums is overkill.

Let them fix it first.

Then I'm sure they'll work on it so it doesn't happen again.

What is the status? Is there an update? Keep up the good work but we need to know if you guys got a legitimate ETA.

Soon enough i think you should redimensionate your webserver. I had a lot of "network timeout" refreshing this page. Although everything worked perfectly.

Please solve this issue very soon. I'll wait...like the rest of us..

I have to agree with others that have mentioned a local backup. This should absolutely be a high priority moving forward!!

This is kind of embarrassing when I've bragged Digsby up so much... I appreciate the long uptime before this, but twice so close together...

I agree with the post that you need to move to having the client-side account cache.

I've been touting the wonders of Digsby for a year now. As a "free" service it's hard to complain, but even a short outage can cause unknowledgable users to instantly revert back to the their original service specific client and then they are just gone. How many first time users might have adopted Digsby during this mornings outage?

I do love the product, and I appreciate the heads-up communication style you use.

I think a bit of down time is completely understandable - and I want to thank team Digsby for all the hard work. It's damn near impossible to get this quality of service from any other IM software, paid for or not.

Don't let the haters bring you down.

agreed Jeff. least then we can get on the IM services, ya know? :-)

Thanks for letting your users know when these things happen! My only comment is when you your server returns to normal service, that you then use the same mechanism to notify us.. My Google Gadget for Digsby STILL shows last weeks "Server Issues". Since there's no date or follow-up to that one, users *could* believe that it's still a problem had you not specified "Round 2" today.....

Great service/software guys!

Sounds like a "use cached settings" feature is going to be coming soon. Having another single point of failure in the communications channel is not a good option for most people and I know my coworkers are already frustrated and almost ready to switch back to trillian/pidgin/miranda/whatever :p

I still don't understand why it EVER connects to Digsby servers. It accomplishes absolutely nothing other than setting the stage for problems like we've seen 2 weeks in a row now. It's not like I can say "Well the downtime is worth it because when it works the server-side connection does _____ for me". With it I'm no better off, without it I'd be on IM now instead of leaving this comment.

The solutions that I and others discussed/commented last week when this happened are critical. Now, that this rare occurrence has happened twice in a week, I would say that adding local backup profiles and/or other functionality to work around the servers having a problem is priority #1 in their next alpha release.

We absolutely need a local backup!!

<3 Digsby...despite any hiccups!

I love Digsby, but it looks like we will have to suffer using aimexpress or others till it's back up.

Keep up the goodwork!

-Herb (RIT Alumni)

Oh my god!! The world is ending!! I can't message my friends!! Whatever will I do?!? My day is ruined!! I'm going to die!!

Seriously people, get a GRIP. A couple hours without flirting and sending stupid messages back and forth is not the apocalypse. I think under grueling tests, people have even survived a whole day or two without IM capabilities. I saw it on Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

Worst case, launch those individual clients (AIM, YIM, etc) for a couple hours and you will probably also survive.

If not, and you can't wait a few hours for Digsby to solve its problems, making "threats" to switch to other programs doesn't really accomplish much. Just shut up and do it and don't bother the rest of us with your sniveling nonsense.

:)

I agree that they should implement a local cache. However, for a free client I am willing to have a secondary piece of software installed (in my case, Pidgin) to bring up if there happens to be an outage. Sure it has happened twice in the last 7 days but the people who are getting irate are overreacting. Install Pidgin, spend 2-3 minutes configuring it then carry on with your work. Check back with Digsby later (or better yet, follow them on Twitter). All will be well. It is a good product and pretty darn stable overall. There are plenty of other (inferior IMHO) products out there that are also free to use. Have at it.

I'm relieved that the problem isn't on my end. With the weekend I've had... lol. :-)

Good luck getting everything back in order. I can imagine that having server problems is a cruddy way to start off the work week. Hopefully they'll cooperate for you soon.

I love the brown nosers saying that nobody has a right to complain because the product is free. If it doesn't work properly, I'm not going to use it anymore. Period. The fact that users are losing their patience and are ready to dump the software is information that should be valuable to the developers. Fanboys who dismiss this as whining are missing the point and should do their cheerleading in a more appropriate forum.

Glad I checked the blog before contacting support. Best of luck to those working on the solution. I hope this isn't the start of a trend in combating outages.

All you flamers, have a little patience, this FREE product has been working flawlessly for a year, updates frequently, and has been unlucky enough to have two major outages in one week, just as they get national press, and the problems were nothing to do with the added traffic.

Unless these guys are morons, which they are clearly not, I am sure they are making it a top priority to get the app to work without the need to connect to a single point of potential failure.

Give them some time, and use meebo in the meantime.

Thanks for the updates! I figured the server needed some coffee to get jump started. For those who complain about an outage, pick up a phone....those do still work?

Thanks to the Digsby team for the hard work you put into a great product!

You guys have a great product, but I have to agree with Randy Aldrich above. That seems to me to be very easy to do. Yet another method, similar to the one he said, is to keep just the user ids on the local machine, in some cache, and ask the users for the password's of the IM services they MUST connect to. Alternately, if the user cannot connect to the digsby servers, ask them which IM service they wish to connect to and then ask for the user id and password. At least then they can connect to their essential IM service.

I'm going to second (third?) the request for the cache. I've gotten used to having everything in one place.

That's a good thing, right?

3 - Strikes and your out. This is 2... : /

Two times in two weeks. Either get a better solution in place to insure your servers stay up or integrate a better fail over solution for your front end connection logic.

I would hate to have to stop using Digsby just because your servers go done a couple times a month. Especially when the solution seems so easy.

I'm just relieved to find out that it's not just me. Thanks for a great product; I'm anxiously awaiting its return to functionality. I agree with ChumChum about crying a little inside...I'll be continuously crying inside while I try to be patient! :/

Hey, Stop giving these Guys at Digsby Guff. Digsby is an awesome product, and it's free, And on top of that there have been service outages all over the country. If the U.S. Government cant restore power to half a state after a week, with billions of tax payers money, then obviously there are some things beyond their control. Part of the Drawback of having so much awesome features in a communications app, is that it cant just connect directly to the AIM/ICQ servers, it needs to go through Digsby's servers first. I depend on AIM for my buisness, too. In the mean time, I just use Aim Express or somthing to get you by until Digsby is back up. If digsby is down, then use one of the other dozen free AIM clients, and suffer with half the features until digsby is back up.

Well, it is frustrating. But it is keeping me from being too distracted at work. Maybe being down for a couple hours is a blessing in disguise.

I ♥ you, Digsby!

Aha! I agree that having an error alert pop up when this happens would be useful, as I just spent 20 minutes fiddling around with my firewall settings trying to work out what went wrong.

Otherwise, thank you for letting us know. Good luck!

Don't worry guys... I am a big fan of Digsby and deep down a fan of anything that comes out of RIT... I didnt go there thought... I went elsewhere upstate... Keep at it... all the problems now will be nothing in the future...

This sucks, but thanks for keeping us informed, I was trying to figure out if it was something to do with the office connection or Digsby.

Just using meebo.com for now!

Thanks for the update - any ETA on when it will be back up? I will be watching and keeping up with your progress here:

http://www.asktheadmin.com/2009/02/digsby-is-down-no-it-is-not-you.html

If you have any updates please email them to info at asktheadmin dot com.

Thanks for a wonderful product.

I just want to say that saying we shouldn't complain because Digsby is free is total B.S. When was the last time you did a fresh install of Digsby? Don't you remember 5 or 6 pieces of crapware you had to click "Decline" on so they wouldn't install? Nothing on the internet is free. Somebody, somewhere, is getting paid.

That being said, a local account settings cache in the next release would be great. Thanks. In the meantime, I'll just use my stand-alone MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.

-Mike

Side request -- Digsby devs, would you be willing to add a "contact" email to the website? I'd have much preferred to send these comments to you directly, rather than have it take the form of a public rant, but there's no way to do that right now.

Pidgin here I come!

Keep up the good work! Digsby is still the best client that I've used. I will continue to use it into the future. Go RIT!

I love Digsby - by feature and UI standarads nothing compares. I'm sticking around but I agree with Lexy -- knowing it's a servier side issue would be helpful -- I spent quite a bit of time this AM checking to see if my firewall was blocking it.

"...to USE A client that actually works."

(My proofreading skills are terrible this morning.)

You know, I keep seeing people saying "I use Digsby for work" and while that's gotta be great, doesn't your company have a corporate-sponsored IM application? Maybe your company isn't as large as the one that I work for, but here we use MS Communicator for all in-network instant messaging.

I use Digsby for exactly what they advertise - Social + IM. While server outages affect me too, it's not a crisis. I like the fact that my configurations are stored online and that I can install and use Digsby from any computer and all of my settings are funneled down for a consistent environment.

Guys, come on. It's a FREE application, and it's very VERY impressive. I say use and SUPPORT it, or jog on. I think their year long track record is pretty damned good for something that's free.

"And a few hours is really not that bad over the course of time. Even the IM clients have more downtime than that."

When the IM server itself is down, I don't have to explain to my employer or our client why I'm not accessible. (Especially since the Jabber server I'm connected to is a box inside the client's VPN.)

When my *client* is down, I'm told by those same people to client that actually works.

I applaud your keeping us informed - thanks! Server issues are frustrating, but your track record speaks for itself with almost perfect reliability. Because your great sysytem has become critial for many users, the local cache feature is essential for continued loyalty from those who cannot afford downtime during the business day. I do hope this project has risen to the highest level of your priority list.

Nice client software. Will wait...

I'm sure others have said it, but a fail over locally or client cache would be good. A secondary server site would be a good idea too. If someones basement is not in use... :)

Keep up the good work.

As long as you don't flag the whole internet as potentially dangerous as other web companies happen to do at times, I'll be fine. ;-)

"I hate people who complain when their FREE program experiences a hicc-up!"

Free or not (and for the record, I've requested a paid version in the forums), if they want us to keep using it, they need to make it usable when we need it. All I'm asking for is confirmation that they're going to work on a feature that they already stated they're considering.

Digsby is great, just hope they can get these server issues resolved and fixed for good. I really don't like having to use Pidgin as a second resort :-/

Hey guys, could you add a "current date/time" applet/widget whatever it's called to the site, your program is used worldwide , and servers down on February 9, 2009 @ 9:45 am means nothing to ppl outside of your timezone (or does the site adapt to your locale?), so it would be nice to have a reference as to how old the message is.

Greetz from Belgium

I <3 t3h Digsby and have installed it on several computers. And a few hours is really not that bad over the course of time. Even the IM clients have more downtime than that.

But, if nothing else, could you please program a separate message in the "Failed to Connect" dialogue to specify that it's a server outage? It would make for less wasted time on the user's side if it didn't have us going to check firewall/proxy settings and wondering what changed.

only the fact the you try hard to provide such a good IM, and you seem always worried about your users, it's enough for me as user to dont get "mad" because of this.

hope you can solve it.

Best of luck, keep up the good work :)

Digsby is well worth the wait. It's a HUGE time saver. I could never go back to another IM client.

Hey, technology happens. Even the giants of IT have problems. What I love about Digsby is that you're always on top of things, letting us know that there is an issue, and that you're working diligently on it. Yes, I'm affected by the downtime, but no, I'm not about to whine and complain about it. You're humans, not perfect. Do what you do, and be blessed.

Ouch. Really opened my eyes to a critical flaw in the digsby idea.

@Adam Way to go! :-P

Alright, I guess I'll have to be patient again. I hate being patient, it takes too long.

It's okay guys! Thanks for us up-to-date :)

I hate people who complain when their FREE program experiences a hicc-up!

You people are great. Keep up the good work!
I'll wait :)

That sucks! I’m using my IM for work, and I can’t get it works this morning =-(

Do I have to change IM software? =-/

Well, they're not generating any revenue off of you since they can't serve ads to you if their software won't connect. They're providing a service free of charge, and stated in the policy that you agreed to when you installed that the software/service is not guaranteed for an purpose. If you're using something like that for mission-critical business, then it's your own fault. If I was them, and heard some self-important jerk like you say something like that, I'd show you the door, and tell you: "don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out!"

Just use http://www.meebo.com/ for a little while until Digsby is back up. Works pretty good in a pinch...

I'm a consultant that relies on IM for business...however, being in the IT business, I realize this kind of thing happens. Keep up the great work and I'll be here when you come back online.

I've said it a thousand times...

Give us a client side account settings cache...

It's easy:

try{
connectAndSyncWithDigsby();
} finally {
connectUsingLocallyCachedSettings();
}

The connection to your different accounts happens from the client anyway (NOT the digsby servers). I really don't understand why it doesn't already work this way. It could have saved you and us a lot of headaches.

put orkut on digsby

I still love you, Digsby.

It must be my fault, I just found out about Digsby and was trying to register an account and look what happens.

I'll mirror the other sentiments here: it sucks but it happens and what matters is that you've kept us informed and are working to fix it. Thanks, good luck and keep up the great work!

"This is completely unacceptable and we will make sure this does not become a regular occurance!"

Unfortunately, even "not a regular occurrence" isn't enough for users who require IM connectivity to do their jobs, like me. I program web applications for a living, and I know from experience that hosting center outages will happen, no matter how good you think your hosting provider and their service contract is.

If Digsby doesn't have a fallback system for days like this, then I have to maintain two IM clients and their buddy lists (not trivial, I work for a consulting firm so my work buddy list changes often), keep two separate sets of logfiles... and generally deal with a level of hassle that I'm just not willing to put up with.

In the comments of the thread below this one, you noted that a local fallback system "receive a lot of thought over the coming days" -- and that's encouraging. But unless you can commit, today, to the development of such a feature, I'm going to have to drop Digsby and go back to Trillian Pro or Pidgin. I don't say this lightly, as I've been a Digsby alpha user for some time, and much prefer Digsby to both programs -- but I prefer the ability to run one client instead of two most of all.

(I'm not even asking for a release date, just a front-page-of-the-blog commitment that it will enter active development and given a decent amount of scheduling priority. I don't think that's an unreasonable request, given the events of the past week.)

You should be flattered that so many of us are affected by your downtime - that because we all love Digsby. But we don't love your servers. I don't love my server either. Death to servers.

I miss Digsby already. Logging into six different websites and refreshing them repeatedly sucks. I'm looking forward to your servers' triumphant return!

Maybe then you should provide an option in the software to bypass your server and just sign us directly into our IM/social network accounts. No other IM client I've used (Gaim/Pidgin, Trillian, Adium) has this problem. It seems silly that I should be unable to log in to AIM because YOUR servers are having problems.

It's all good no worries. I love your product and tell everyone to use it. I just hop you guys get it resolved sooner than later. It's like my heart blood for me to keep up with everything at work!

Love Digsby, but PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE....

Add a feature that caches our settings/lists/contacts, and allows us to still login if your servers are down.

Please!

Hey, no worries. Just get it resolved for good :) Life will go on if the best messenger client is down for an hour or two lol.

Good luck in fixing the problem!

After a year, I think I can handle a little bit of downtime. Keep up the great work guys.

This sucks for you guys, but its cool. Your uptime has been outstanding. Everyone hits a snag every now and then. I know your going to put your heads together and come up for an alternative method of connection in case the server isn't detected in the future.
Thanks for a great product.
Do any of you use Steam? Maybe do something like they do. If the server cant be found, have a button that pops up that allows you to run in offline mode or something. I don't know.
thanks

It's perfectly understandable... server issues affect us all. I enjoy digsby enough that minor annoyances like this aren't an issue.

Why its going down again and again ?

I hate monday mornings. Maybe your servers do too.

Even with the two outages, Digsby is STILL more stable than most apps out there. I've DL'ed two alpha releases in the last year and didn't have as many issues I had with other IM clients and digsby does SO much more than IM. Chin up. Keep up the good work.

~Lee

Hi guys, best of luck with the server issues - you must be so frustrated! For those who's like to badmouth the guys at Digsby: You're getting awesome software for free... and remember, beta's means there's always a teething process.

That sucks! I'm using my IM for work, and I can't get it works this morning =-(

Do I have to change IM software? =-/

It is nice to see that you are informing us users this fast. :)
Keep up the good work!

It is nice to see that you are informing your users this fast. :)
Keep up the good work!

I cry a little inside when this happens.